1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a printer that prints out an image by discharging ink from nozzles, a printing program, and a printing method.
2. Related Art
For example, in an existing ink jet printer that prints out an image by discharging ink form nozzles, a process (which is called flushing, or the like) is performed to discharge ink from all the nozzles at a constant period of time during the printing process. In this manner, ink is prevented from clogging nozzles that are not used for printing. The above flushing technology is, for example, described as an ink jet recording apparatus in JP-A-2004-106470.
The ink jet recording apparatus described in JP-A-2004-106470 is provided with a head movement driving portion that reciprocally moves a line ink jet printer head, which performs a one-pass recording mode, in an array direction of its nozzles, that is, in a main scanning direction, and then executes a head movement process in which driving of the head movement driving portion is controlled to move the ink jet printer head in the array direction of the nozzles and a nozzle position modification process in which, in a direction opposite to the head movement direction at a pitch corresponding to the amount of shift of the ink jet printer head at this time, the positions of the nozzles, which discharge ink droplets, are shifted in the ink jet printer head as a whole. In this manner, the positions of the nozzles, which discharge ink droplets, are shifted in the ink jet printer head as a whole, so that nozzles that do not discharge ink are reduced, and, hence, it is less likely to cause an ink discharge defect in the nozzles.
However, in the existing art described in JP-A-2004-106470, an exclusive mechanism is required for shifting the nozzles, so that there is a possibility that an inconvenience, such as an enlarged size of apparatus, may occur.